Training to become a master mariner in a simulator-based environment
The instructors’ contributions to professional learning
Charlott Sellberg
© CHARLOTT SELLBERG, 2017 ISBN: 978-91-7346-943-2 (print) ISBN: 978-91-7346-944-9 (pdf) ISSN: 0436-1121
Doctoral thesis in Education at the Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg Distribution:
Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Box 222, 405 30 Göteborg, or to acta@ub.gu.se
Photo: Charlott Sellberg
Print: BrandFactory AB, Kållered, 2017
Abstract
Title: Training to become a master mariner in a simulator-based environment: The instructors’ contributions to professional learning
Author: Charlott Sellberg
Language: English with a Swedish summary ISBN: 978-91-7346-943-2 (print)
ISBN: 978-91-7346-944-9 (pdf) ISSN: 0436-1121
Keywords: Simulator-based training, Instruction and learning, Workplace studies, Interaction analysis, Maritime education and training In higher education programs that aim to prepare students for professional performance in safety-critical work activities, the introduction of simulators is seen as a fundamentally restructuring of the ways in which professional skills are developed and assessed. This, in turn, creates new challenges and possibilities for both teaching and learning a profession. This thesis examines maritime instructors’ work in supporting students’ collaborative training to become professional seafarers in simulator-based learning environments. The empirical material is based on ethnographic fieldwork and video data of simulator-based training sessions in a navigation course. The thesis consists of four studies. Study I is a literature review and synthesis of previous research on the use of simulators in master mariner training. Study II focuses on the overall organisation of simulator-based training (i.e. briefing–scenario–
debriefing) and the instructor’s work throughout the three training phases.
Study III examines the organisation of instructions during the scenario phase, while exploring the practice of training to apply “the rules of the road at sea”
in the simulator. Study IV connects to an on-going debate on the realism and
knowledge transfer of simulator-based training with respect to the work
practices on board seagoing vessels for which the students are training. While
previous research on the use of simulators in maritime training argues that the
current training system favours training towards simulator-based tests rather
than to help students become competent professionals, the findings of this
thesis point in a different direction. The results of the empirical studies reveal
an instructional practice and training model founded on the need to account
rules of the sea are difficult to teach in abstraction, since their application
involves an infinite number of contingencies that must be considered in every
specific case. Based on this premise, the thesis stresses the importance of both
in-scenario instruction and post-simulation debriefing in order for the
instructor to demonstrate how general rules for action apply to practical
situations in ways that develop students’ professional competences. Moreover,
based on the findings, I argue that the relevance of simulator-based training to
work contexts is a dialogical phenomenon of relating between practices. Such
interactional accomplishments draw on both the students’ access to work
contexts and the instructor’s ability to systematically address the similarities,
differences and irregularities between practices during training in the
simulator.
Contents
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS... 9
P
REFACE... 11
P
ARTO
NE: S
TUDYING MARITIME INSTRUCTORS’
WORK IN SIMULATOR-
BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS... 13
I. I
NTRODUCTION: N
EW CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR MARITIME TRAINING... 15
Aims and research questions ... 19
Reading directions ... 21
II. B
ACKGROUND: S
IMULATORS AS SITES FOR LEARNING WORK PRACTICES.... 23
A historical background to navigation and bridge teamwork ... 24
From apprenticeship to formal maritime education... 27
Simulators as contexts for training ... 29
Training work-related tasks through simulation ... 33
Post-simulation debriefings as sites for learning ... 37
III. T
HEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: S
ITUATING LEARNING IN SOCIAL,
MATERIAL AND CULTURAL PRACTICES... 41
Paradigm shifts in research on technology and learning ... 42
Naturalistic studies of learning practices ... 47
Talk and bodily conduct in the material world as the unit of analysis ... 49
Trajectories of learning in observable interactions ... 52
IV. R
ESEARCH SETTING AND METHODS... 57
The empirical case ... 57
Participants and the master mariner programme ... 58
Navigation training in the bridge operation simulator ... 60
Method: Ethnographic fieldwork and video recorded data ... 64
Research ethics ... 66
Conducting ethnographic fieldwork ... 67
Recording video data ... 70
Study I: Simulators in bridge operation training and assessment: A
systematic review and qualitative synthesis ... 77
Study II: From briefing, through scenario to debriefing: The maritime instructor’s work during simulator-based training ... 80
Study III: Demonstrating professional intersubjectivity: The instructor’s work in simulator-based learning environments ... 83
Study IV: Representing and enacting movement: The body as an instructional resource in a simulator-based environment... 86
VI. D
ISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS... 91
The instructors’ role in simulator-based learning environments ... 92
The use of simulator-based technologies in training ... 94
Directions for future research ... 96
Conclusions ... 98
Final remarks ... 99
VII. S
WEDISH SUMMARY... 101
Introduktion ... 102
Analytiskt förhållningssätt och metod... 104
Den studerade praktiken ... 106
Delstudierna och deras resultat ... 107
Diskussion ... 112
R
EFERENCES... 115
P
ARTT
WO: T
HE STUDIES... 123
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank my supervisors, Mona Lundin and Roger Säljö, for their encouragement, guidance and expert advice in writing this thesis. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of project members Olle Lindmark and Hans Rystedt, who were continuously involved and engaged in my work.
I am also grateful to Jessica Lindblom, my former teacher and long-time mentor, who took on a role as expert supervisor when I needed additional support. A thank you also goes to Hans-Christian Arnseth for his critical and constructive feedback in the final review of the thesis. For endless patience in helping me with all administrative matters, Doris Gustafson, Carin Johansson, Eva Wennberg, Desirée Engwall and Annika-Lantz Andersson all deserve my deepest appreciation. I would also like to thank my fellow PhD students, particularly Emma Edstrand, Geraldine Fauville, Malin Nilsen and Mikaela Åberg, for their encouragement and advice throughout the process. I would like to send a special thank you to Elin Johansson, whom I could always trust to be there with the essentials of doctoral studies: that is, wine, chocolate and support.
I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the importance of the different research environments with which I have been involved during my doctoral studies. In addition to co-funding the thesis project, LinCS and LETStudio provided platforms for continuous knowledge exchange and fruitful discussions. Special thanks go to LinCS-Lab for assisting in the research design and the collection of the video-recorded data. I would also like to thank LinCS-NAIL for providing a platform for the collaborative analysis of the data. In this context, I would particularly like to thank Åsa Mäkitalo and Oskar Lindwall.
Last, but certainly not least, I am grateful to the instructors and students at the maritime simulator centre for sharing their practice with me. They not only let me video-record their training, but also taught me the fundamentals of navigation and seamanship I needed to know in order to analyse their practice in the first place. This thesis is dedicated to you.
Gothenburg, October 2017
Charlott Sellberg
Preface
This thesis is part of a larger project called “Training skills and assessing performance in simulator-based learning environments”, which is a collaboration between the Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences at Chalmers University of Technology and the Department of Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg. A modern and, in several respects, unique maritime simulator centre has been built at Chalmers Lindholmen in cooperation with the Swedish Maritime Administration (Swe: Sjöfartsverket). The simulators are used for both educational purposes and research. One of the research areas of interest to the current project is the assessment of non-technical skills, which is made relevant by new legislative demands regarding simulator training and certification. When large parts of maritime skills and practices training are conducted in simulator-based learning environments, traditional written exams become increasingly irrelevant. As a result, there is a need for upgraded forms of assessment that, on one hand, acknowledge the multifaceted nature of performance in simulator-based training, and, on the other, meet the certification criteria set by international standards. The aim of the overall project to which this thesis belongs is to investigate the use of advanced technologies in the training and assessment of complex professional performance in simulator-based environments.
With a background in cognitive science and an established analytical
interest in how cognition and learning are situated in the interaction between
humans and technologies, I was recruited to write my thesis within the
project. This PhD work is jointly funded by the University of Gothenburg
Learning and Media Technology Studio (LETStudio); the Linnaeus Centre for
Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in
Contemporary Society (LinCS); the Department of Mechanics and Maritime
Sciences at Chalmers University of Technology; and the Department of
Education, Communication and Learning at the University of Gothenburg.
Part One: Studying maritime instructors’ work in
simulator-based learning environments
I. Introduction: New challenges and opportunities for maritime training
This thesis explores instructors’ work in simulator-based learning environments. My research focuses on the use of simulator technologies in higher education and how instructors support students’ collaborative training to become master mariners in simulator-based environments. Simulator-based maritime training serves as an illustrative and paradigmatic example of a domain where the introduction of high-end technologies, together with new legislative demands, has created new possibilities and challenges for the organisation of higher education in general and for instructors specifically.
This is partially due to changes in the work practices themselves: in recent decades, the maritime profession has been transformed as ship equipment and technologies have undergone rapid changes (Grech, Horberry, & Koester, 2008). Today, navigation is carried out by means of semi-automated navigation and communication systems requiring high levels of technical skills and professional knowledge of the bridge team. At the same time, there has been a generational shift in this professional domain, and the amount of on board experience has decreased, creating an experiential gap between juniors and officers (Hanzu-Pazara, Barsan, Arsenie, Chiotoroiu, & Raicu, 2008).
Historically, becoming a seaman implied working one’s way up the hierarchy of duties of the ship, learning the profession through years as an apprentice and a junior member of a team. Today, maritime competencies are cultivated through traditional academic activities, such as lectures and seminars, combined with practical exercises in simulator-based environments and periods of on-board practice. (Emad, 2010).
Simulators have been used for training in maritime education since the first
radar simulators appeared in the 1950s. Hanzu-Pazara et al. (2008) describe
how simulator-based training was introduced to maritime training with the
primary intent to train such skills as passage planning and the master/pilot
relationship. In more recent years, influences from training in the aviation
industry have been strong, leading to a focus on training crew resource
management (CRM) (Hayward & Lowe, 2010). CRM training focuses
particularly on what are described as non-technical or cognitive skills, such as
leadership, communication, situation awareness and decision-making (Flin, 2008). Today, simulators are used for training in many parts of the maritime industry, both for basic training and for competence development courses designed to update the skills of professional seafarers. Simulator-based training includes offshore operation training on vessels and oil rigs, in situations involving both bridge operations and cargo handling, engine control, crane operations, towing and anchor handling. Simulators are also used in ship-to-shore training, training for crane operations and training for vessel traffic services (VTS).
The practice of simulator-based training is well established in modern maritime education, and it is regulated by the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Standard of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), which provides a set of regulations for maritime education. To ensure that future mariners can act properly and safely, this convention stresses that simulators should be used for both training and assessment. The latest update of the STCW convention, the 2010 Manila amendments, places greater emphasis on proficiency and non-technical skills than previous updates. The division between technical and non-technical skills stems from perspectives inherent to classic cognitivist approaches to activities, technologies and people. Since this thesis draws on theories that situate cognition and learning in interactions among participants in socio-material environments, such a division between technical and non-technical skills is not valid when studying simulator-based training in situ. Instead, the various professional skills that are developed in the simulator are seen as increasingly intertwined with learning tasks and the technologies involved in solving these tasks. When considerable parts of the training of professional skills and work practices are conducted in simulator-based learning environments, there is a need for upgraded forms of training that acknowledge the complex nature of performance in simulator-based training, and, at the same time, meet the criteria for training and certification established by the STCW convention.
However, though simulator-based training is well established within the
maritime education system, few empirical studies focused on the use of
simulators in the context of maritime training (Study I). At this point in time, I
will argue, there are more questions than answers concerning the use of
simulators in maritime training. There is a need for research that
acknowledges the complex nature of performance in simulator-based training
and examines how this relates to the STCW convention. In this context, this
thesis contributes to a small corpus of work that takes the use of simulators in maritime training as an empirical case through which to study students’
training of professional skills and work practices in situ.
In domains outside of maritime training, simulators provide risk-free opportunities for training safety-critical activities in such professions as aviation and health care (e.g. Dahlström, Dekker, Van Winsen & Nyce, 2009).
During simulation, participants can operate at the edge of safety, and even beyond, to engage in training and assessment that would be inappropriate or even impossible in real work settings. It has been argued that the controlled environment of the simulator also has pedagogical advantages, since exercises can be designed to train and assess specific learning outcomes (e.g. Maran &
Glavin, 2003). In the simulator, the layers of complexity of different situations can be increased or reduced to adjust to participants’ prior experiences and knowledge. Simulator exercises also allow possibilities trainers to make changes during exercises to adjust to students’ performance. It is even possible to pause a simulation for feedback and discussion. Furthermore, simulators provide an opportunity to train skills that are time-consuming or costly to practice in work settings, such as on board training. In the simulator, the argument goes, training can be achieved in a more time-efficient and cost- effective way (e.g. Barsan, 2009; Beaubien & Baker, 2004).
However, while simulators are believed to offer great potential for learning, their use in training also raises a number of practical and theoretical questions of interest to pedagogical research. It is far from evident how skills trained in the simulator relates to the professional practice or how to productively assess performance in simulator-based learning environments. In this context, this thesis connects to long-standing pedagogical debates on the character of knowledge in action, as well as recent research on how professional knowledge develops in and through observable interaction. In a study on simulations in healthcare, Rystedt and Sjöblom (2012) concluded that the development of professional knowledge is an interactional and situated matter, as well as an instructional concern, since the relevance or irrelevance of different simulated activities must be systematically addressed through professional guidance and feedback by an instructor. To quote the work of Hindmarsh, Hyland and Banjerjee (2014, p. 265) in their study on simulators in dental education:
The simulator itself does not inform the student how to perform a manual
skill, to develop a professional bodily technique. The simulator also does
not provide the reason why the task should be accomplished one way and not another. Thus exploring the seams between simulation and clinical situations occasions debate and discussion of the clinical setting, clinical procedure, and clinical reasoning—issues to take into account and practices to adopt in developing clinical expertise (Hindmarsh et al., 2014, p. 265).
As outlined in this quotation, the simulator itself offers little in terms of learning, beyond providing a context in which experiences may be developed and analysed. In the case of maritime simulator-based training, Hontvedt and Arnseth (2013) highlight that, while the ship simulator exhibits great potential as an educational tool, what is simulated during training exceeds the simulator as a technological device. As their analysis shows, students’ meaning making activities are highly dependent on the instructor’s ability to design and facilitate simulations as relevant activity contexts: that is, contexts in which participants are solving relevant work-related tasks (Linell & Persson Thunqvist, 2003). Hence, in order for new technologies to improve academic performance, both appropriate implementation in terms of student engagement, instructional support and relevant connections to work contexts are critical to achieve positive results (cf. Säljö, 2010).
In the literature, two opposing views of the simulator dominate. Whereas some see simulators as rather neutral devices, others view their technical fidelity as highly relevant prerequisites for effective training. This thesis will challenge both of these views. Specifically, I propose that a more reasonable stance lies in-between these positions, in a perspective that considers both the resources and the constraints of the simulator environment with regard to developing professional competencies (cf. Leonardi, 2015). With respect to the challenges and opportunities the introduction of simulator technologies implies for maritime education, the perspective on the emergence and adoption of new technologies taken in this thesis is that simulators in rather fundamental ways restructure how professional skills are developed and how intelligent actions are being performed and assessed (cf. Säljö, 2010).
In sum, previous research has shown that the use of simulators in training
shows clear potential for training skills and developing professional
knowledge in educational settings. However, instructors’ work of organising
and facilitating training is also crucial for meeting learning objectives. Against
the background of the challenges and opportunities in maritime education and
the results of previous research, this thesis will focus on instructors’ work
during collaborative learning activities in simulator-based learning activities in
maritime training. More specific aims and research questions are formulated below.
Aims and research questions
At the maritime simulator centre under study in this thesis, training sessions are organised across three phases that are regularly used in simulator-based training. Firstly, a short introduction, a so-called briefing, to the assignment of the day is conducted in a classroom next to the simulators. Secondly, a scenario plays out on a bridge operation simulator. Thirdly, the group engages in a post-scenario discussion, a so-called debriefing, about the exercise in which the students have taken part. It should be observed that the activities under study in this thesis are both part of a university course with learning objectives and part of certifying skills for navigation according to international standards. In this thesis, the overall aim is to gain knowledge, at the level of interaction in instructional settings, about the instructors’ work of supporting the students’ learning towards master mariners’ expertise during simulator- based learning activities. More specifically, the research questions are as follows:
• What is the current status of research on simulator-based maritime training?
• How do instructors use the socio-material resources in the simulator environment in their instructional work?
• What is being taught and, thus, made accessible for students to learn in and through these instructions?
While the first research question aims to review and synthesise the research field, the second research question explores what is practically accomplished by instructions in the simulator environment. The third research question is of a different character. Though it aims to reveal the lesson being taught, it also examines trajectories of learning: that is, how the object of knowledge develops in and through observable interactions during lessons.
Study I, as has been pointed out, explores the first research question
through a systematic literature review and qualitative synthesis of research on
simulator-based maritime training (cf. Bearman & Dawson, 2013). The review
provides a background to the use of simulators for learning to master bridge
operations, as well as an overview of how simulator-based maritime training has been studied in previous research in the maritime domain. Studies II through IV follow a naturalistic and empirically driven research approach.
Rather than starting the analytical work with a set of theoretical conceptions of what is being done, these analyses aim to unpack what constitutes training practice for the students and instructors in the setting of simulator-based maritime instruction. In line with this focus, Studies II through IV are designed as workplace studies (Heath, Hindmarsh, & Luff, 2010; Luff, Hindmarsh, & Heath, 2000). The argument for adopting a workplace studies approach, which combines ethnographic fieldwork with close and detailed analyses of video recorded interactions, is that such an approach is useful for identifying and explicating common patterns of interaction during activities in the simulator environment. Such explications are known to lead to a heightened awareness of interactions in learning settings amongst teachers, instructors and supervisors: that is, among practitioners themselves (Heath et al., 2010). Moreover, such analytical findings lay a foundation for reflecting on the impacts of new policies, procedures and technologies on educational activities (Heath et al., 2010). This is especially relevant considering the challenges and opportunities for maritime training posed by the introduction of simulator technologies and updates to the STCW convention. In line with these research interests, this thesis contributes to a corpus of educational research on how knowledge develops in and through instructional work, using maritime simulation as an illustrative case (e.g. Evans & Reynolds, 2016;
Greiffenhagen, 2012; Lindwall & Ekström, 2012; Lindwall, Lymer, &
Greiffenhagen, 2015; Zemel & Koschmann, 2014). Moreover, this thesis contributes to maritime education with empirically grounded results regarding the use of simulators in training.
The theoretical approaches differ across the studies comprising this thesis.
The reason for this is that the phenomena that emerged as interesting during
the early stages of the analysis of the empirical data lend themselves to
different types of theoretical framings, depending on the observed
interactions and the developing object of knowledge. However, all of the
theoretical approaches can be described as interactional approaches that view
instruction and learning as being situated in the socio-material world (Luff et
al., 2000). As an end result, the combination of theories provides different
perspectives on the learning practices that take place in the simulator
environment and, thus, explain a variety of the different processes at work
during learning activities. As argued by Leonardi (2015), combining theories can help to “generate new findings and surface new solutions to old problems” (p. 260).
Study II draws on a situated action approach (Suchman, 2007) to analyse how instructions from the briefing phase of simulator-based training are oriented towards during the subsequent scenario and debriefing phases of training. The study examines how general rules for action are connected with the specifics of particular situations during training sessions, tracing two different kinds of learning lessons connected to maritime work practices throughout the different phases of training in the simulator. Hence, the analysis concerns both the temporal organisation of instructions during training sessions and the different material conditions available to the instructor in the simulator environment.
Study III, which is co-authored with Mona Lundin, draws on Goodwin’s (1994) notions of professional vision and professional intersubjectivity to analyse how instructors’ work of highlighting and articulating semiotic structures in the simulator develops students’ ability to coordinate with other vessels in the rule-governed traffic system. The analytical focus of this study is narrowed down to a single episode of the instructor’s work on the simulated bridge during scenarios, exploring both how the instructional work is conducted and what is being taught, and thus made assessable for the students to learn, in and through instructions.
Study IV focuses on the instructors’ work of representing and enacting missing aspects of the real work environment in the simulator to develop the students’ professional knowledge about ship movements. Here, I use the concept of distributed cognition as a theoretical framework for the analysis (Hutchins, 1995). The analysis in this study draws on episodes of the instructors’ work on the simulated bridge during scenarios to explore particularly how the body is used as an instructional resource in a simulator environment lacking aspects of motion dynamics.
Reading directions
Part One of the thesis consists of the extended abstract and seven chapters.
Chapter I introduces the opportunities and challenges that the rise of
simulator technologies and new legislate demands pose for maritime training,
as well as the thesis aim and research questions. Chapter II provides a
background to the use of simulators in students’ training to become professionals, drawing on research from different but related fields, such as shipping, aviation and healthcare. Chapter III gives an account of the workplace studies approach that informs this thesis, focusing particularly on Suchman’s (2007) plans and situated action, Goodwin’s (1994) work on professional vision and Hutchin’s (1995) distributed cognition approach, each of which are central to the studies comprising the thesis. Chapter IV discusses the empirical setting, the participants involved in the master mariner programme, the ethical considerations and the methods used for data collection and analysis. Chapter V summarises the four studies, and Chapter VI concludes and discusses the results in terms of their empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions, as well as their limitations.
Chapter VII presents a Swedish summary of the thesis.
Part Two of the thesis contains the following four studies:
I. Sellberg, C. (2017). Simulators in bridge operation training and assessment: A systematic review and qualitative synthesis. WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs, 16(2), 247–263.
II. Sellberg, C. (2017). From briefing, through scenario to debriefing: The maritime instructor’s work during simulator-based training. Online First, Cognition, Technology & Work.
III. Sellberg, C. & Lundin, M. (2017). Demonstrating professional intersubjectivity: The instructor’s work in simulator-based learning environments. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 13, 60–74.
IV. Sellberg, C. (2017). Representing and enacting movement: The body as
an instructional resource in a simulator-based environment. Education
and Information Technologies, 22(5), 2311–2332.
II. Background: Simulators as sites for learning work practices
A general concern for higher education in safety-critical work domains, such as maritime work, is to prepare students for complex tasks in future work settings. Simulators have been developed to meet this concern when training both students and professionals in such work domains as shipping, healthcare and aviation. Simulator-based maritime training encounters challenges similar to those of other domains, and its training is organised across a series of three phases that reflect those of other domains: specifically, briefing, scenario and debriefing (e.g. Fanning & Gaba, 2007). The first phase, briefing, introduces students to the assignment of the day. Briefing is commonly focused on sharing practical information, introducing materials and specifying the objectives of the exercise (Wickers, 2010). After the introduction, a scenario is played out in the simulator. Emad (2010) describes how, in navigation training, a simulator-based scenario is organised in a specific way. First, the instructor directs each student group to a simulator that mimics the bridge of a vessel. After that, the instructor assigns the group the roles and duties of a bridge team, and gives the group members specific work-related tasks. After the practical exercise, a debriefing is conducted. In the literature, debriefing is described as a post-experience analysis of and reflection on the exercise. It is widely considered to be especially important for learning from scenario-based experiences (e.g. Deickmann et al., 2008, Fanning & Gaba, 2007, Neill &
Wotton, 2011, Wickers, 2010).
Although simulator-based training in maritime education shares some general learning features with other domains, there are also aspects specific to navigational work practices. Whereas Study I provides a systematic review of previous research on simulator-based training in the maritime domain, this chapter explores the use of simulators for learning navigational work practices by also drawing on research from such domains as aviation and healthcare.
This approach seeks to make explicit the specifics of maritime navigation
training in relation to the more general aspects of learning to become a
professional in a domain involving safety-critical operations. In line with this
focus, the first section of the chapter provides a backdrop to the history of maritime work. This is followed by a section about learning the practices involved in navigational work. This, in turn, is followed by three sections addressing the different features of simulator-based training. First, the simulator is explored as a realistic representation of a physical work setting, with a particular focus on such notions as the technical and environmental fidelity of simulator design. Second, the properties of simulations—that is, the organisation of learning activities as engaging, realistic and relevant work tasks in the simulator—are discussed
1. Finally, the practices of post-simulation debriefing are presented, since the literature considers these to be especially important for learning in simulator-based training (e.g. Fanning & Gaba, 2007;
Neill & Wotton, 2011; Wickers, 2010).
A historical background to navigation and bridge teamwork
For the entire time that a ship is sailing the sea, the team working on the ship’s bridge performs navigational computations using a wide range of technologies. Navigation is part of a long tradition of social and technological work practices that date back well over two thousand years:
Between the early attempts at measurement and map making and the present day, there lies a rich history of technical innovations. In a typical hour of navigation activities, a modern navigator may utilize technologies that range in age from a few years to many hundreds of years. The time scale of the development of navigation practice may be measured in centuries. (Hutchins, 1993, p. 36)
In examining the technological changes over the last century, Lützhöft (2004) shows how both navigational technologies and work practices have evolved over time. At the end of the 1920s, bridge teams relied on traditional and sometimes outdated technologies and navigation methods, such as dead reckoning, piloting and celestial navigation. Dead reckoning is a basic method for calculating a ship’s current position by using a previously determined position and keeping track of speed and direction sailed. This method relies
1 Without going into theoretical and philosophical debates on what a simulator or simulation is, the term simulator will be used for describing the technological artefact while simulations will be used to refer to the exercise that takes place in the simulator. When using the term simulator-based training, I refer to the whole training design: from briefing, through scenario, to debriefing.
on the use of paper charts, compasses, rulers, chart protractors and pens (Hutchins, 1995). Piloting is the practice of navigating using visual landmarks and navigation aids, e.g. lighthouses, buoys or depth soundings (Lützhöft, 2004). Celestial navigation is an ancient method of navigating by determining position using the sun, moon, stars and planets. It can be performed by using a sextant to measure the distance between two objects or, as described in Hutchins’ (1983) study on Micronesian navigation, by visually following the linear constellations of star paths. By the end of the 1950s, radar systems had become commercially available. This advancement was followed by gyrocompasses and echo sounders in the 1960s and satellite navigation in the 1970s and 1980s (Lützhöft, 2004). Today, a technologically equipped bridge includes means for electronic navigation, e.g. electronic devices, such as radar, and electronic charts for positioning (Aizinov & Orekhov, 2010).
As new technology has entered modern navigational work practices, some have expected that navigators will have less work to perform (Lützhöft &
Nyce, 2014). However, rather than having less work to do, navigators have simply shifted their work practices from manual work towards what is known as integration work. This type of work is not new in the maritime field.
Lützhöft and Nyce (2014, p. 60) describe it as the kind of work practitioners have always performed in order to construct workplaces that “work for them”
on board the bridge of a vessel. In their ethnographic study on board different types of ships, the work observed in bridge teams depended heavily on both electronic displays and the use of paper and pen to determine positions.
Hence, navigation still relies on established methods, such as the practice of dead reckoning for plotting courses on paper charts. Combining these practices with electronic navigation tools, e.g. radar and electronic charts, makes it possible to construct an integrated view of the unfolding situation.
One reason such triangulation is important is that navigational decisions require a great deal of assertiveness. The ships in traffic today are massive objects that are slow to respond to changes in speed and direction, making mistakes costly in terms of both time and resources (Bailey, Housley, &
Belcher, 2006). Moreover, when sailing in narrow waters, restricted visibility
or trafficked areas, the bridge team must be oriented towards “clear, concise
and early action” (Hutchins, 1990, p. 193). In order to coordinate this time-
critical work, the members of a bridge team must work together and make use
of a number of technologies in order to constantly plan ahead and maintain a
close eye on the environment so that they can make decisions (Bailey et al., 2006).
In recent years, a number of factors, such as increased automation, organisational changes and industry demands for greater efficiency and increased profitability in shipping, have significantly reduced the manning of vessels (Ljung & Lützhöft, 2014). For example, in the past 25 years, the crew of a normal-sized cargo vessel has been reduced from 40 or 50 people to 22 people. Furthermore, Ljung and Lützhöft (2014, p. 232) point out that the maritime work structure is “firmly rooted in a hierarchical order with defined roles for the performance of work” in one of the most conservative industries in the world. This hierarchy is also evident on the bridge, where the commanding order descends from the captain in charge of the ship, to the officer-of-the-watch navigating the vessel, to the helmsman in control of steering to, finally, the lookout keeping a close eye on the marine environment. With respect to the bridge team’s work order, the bridge contains several key positions, such as radar displays and chart tables, where navigational decisions are made; helm and engine controls for manoeuvring the vessel; and the bridge wings adjacent to the bridge, where the lookouts keep watch (Bailey et al., 2006). This hierarchical and spatial organisation forms the basis for teamwork, which involves an intricate matrix of social and material interactions:
Of crucial importance and relevance to the practical tasks the team performs is the unfolding temporal frame of navigational work and practice.
It is a temporal frame within which interaction between team members is constituted and realised within a matrix of navigational equipment, control of the helm and engines, geographical/oceanographic features and other waterborne objects. (Bailey et al., 2006, p. 358)
While the bridge teamwork reported in Bailey et al. (2006) is, to a significant
extent, centred around the bridge panel, both the layout of the bridge in terms
of proximity among team members and the noise level on board a ship create
challenges related to gaining and maintaining a shared perspective of the
situation at hand. In order to ensure clear communication and avoid
misunderstandings, bridge teams engage in what is known as confirmatory
talk or closed-loop communication (Bailey et al., 2006). The main idea of such
communication is that when someone delivers a message, the receiver of the
message repeats it back. Then, if the message is repeated properly, the
deliverer ratifies the message (Froholdt, 2015). This communicative structure
is integral to the maritime communicative pattern and can also be seen between vessels and other actors, such as land-based services. Communication between such actors is radio-mediated through Very High Frequency (VHF) radio, a channel system that allows only one speaker to talk at the same time (Froholdt, 2015). In sum, learning to navigate implies becoming embedded in an environment with a long history of social and technological developments and changes in the division of labour.
From apprenticeship to formal maritime education
As pointed out, until recently, maritime competencies were trained primarily through years of apprenticeship on board ships. In other words, the skills of a mariner were fostered in the context of work, where the learner was a participant in the maritime culture (Hutchins, 1990, 1993, 1995). Hence, when mariners learned to navigate, their careers unfolded through a learning trajectory involving a multi-year transition from novice to master. For example, in the context of the US Navy, a career began with a socialisation period, during which newcomers acquired “the fundamental skills of a sailor”
and moved from being mere recruits, to apprenticeships, to becoming “able- bodied seaman” (Hutchins, 1995, p. 15). Then, a seaman moved forward to learn the skills of a particular job, e.g. in the machine room or on the bridge.
As a seaman’s expertise developed, both ranking and responsibilities developed in the context of a strict hierarchal system (Hutchins, 1995).
In recent decades, learning to navigate through apprenticeship has been gradually replaced by formal learning in higher education (Emad, 2010; Emad
& Roth, 2008). In the current maritime educational context, simulators are used to reduce the periods during which students practice on board vessels to learn the skills and practices of navigation (Barsan, 2009). In the current training system, the navigation of a vessel larger than 500 gross tonnage is regulated by the STCW convention, which requires an international standard of competence amongst seafarers (Hontvedt, 2005a). A class V maritime officer requires both an academic bachelor degree and a number of certificates obtained through on board practice and simulator-based competence tests.
Hence, learning to navigate today involves a combination of learning through
formal education and on board experience and participation.
Emad (2010) offers a brief ethnographic description of simulator-based navigation training and discusses the central role of the instructor in shaping the context for learning:
He [the instructor] assigns a section of the lab as the simulated bridge of a ship with its entire equipment and other resources available to the mariner.
He assigns each group of students the duties of members of a ship’s navigation team. He gives them specific tasks and runs the simulation in real-time. His aim is to create an authentic marine environment—as he is in real life—and supervises the activities of the team. (p. 878)
As the students exhibit increased involvement and competence in handling tasks collaboratively, the instructor gradually decreases support. This gradual transition allows the students to take on the responsibilities of higher ranks, while allowing the instructor to take on the role of a background moderator or facilitator. Hence, the development of skills in educational settings differs in fundamental ways from the hierarchal and temporal nature of moving from novice to master in an apprenticeship (Emad & Roth, 2006). In educational settings, learning can be described as a dynamic exchange of competence or expertise among members, where responsibility can be attributed to anyone in the community that the group considers a resource for solving different tasks.
In other words, in educational settings, novices such as students can take on the responsibilities of officers. The role of the instructor then becomes one of
“shaping the context of the community to initiate, develop and evolve”
(Emad & Roth, 2006, p. 597). This example illustrates how the introduction of new technology, such as simulators, into learning a profession helps to transform our notions of learning, what students should master and how skills should be cultivated (cf. Säljö, 2010). These changes, in turn, require changes in pedagogy and instructional practice. For maritime training, Emad (2010) suggests adapting towards cognitive apprenticeship by replicating the critical elements of traditional apprenticeship in an educational environment. This includes aspects such as modelling tasks, mentoring, coaching, and gradually decreasing support as the student learns, i.e. reducing the nature of the scaffolding provided to the learner (cf. Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976).
What is particularly interesting in Emad’s (2010) findings is how
instructors strive to create what the author refers to as an authentic learning
environment and realistic work tasks. The following sections of this chapter
explore exactly what this means, focusing first on how the simulator itself
might resemble a realistic work setting.
Simulators as contexts for training
Vidal-Gomel and Fauquet-Alekhine (2016) define a simulator as an “artefact that simulates (partially or completely) the operation or the behaviour of a technical system, facility, or a natural phenomenon” (p. 2). The literature typically distinguishes between low-fidelity simulators that simulate aspects of the physical work setting in an abstract way and high-fidelity simulators designed to match the appearance and behaviour of the setting to a high degree (e.g. Dahlström et al., 2009; Drews & Backdash, 2013; Maran &
Glavin, 2003). For example, desktop-based simulators with simplified representations of visual aspects of the ship and the environment are considered to be low-fidelity, while simulators that simulate the ship’s visual, auditory and motion cues in a realistic way are considered high-fidelity (Figure 1).
Figure 1. A range of different ship bridge simulators from desktop simulators (left) to high-fidelity simulators (right). Copyright KONGSBERG Group; used with permission from KONGSBERG Group.
Since situations encountered in high-risk domains, such as the maritime industry, are complex and dynamic, it is considered important for simulators to resemble the work context and for the simulation to resemble the conditions of real-world work tasks (e.g. Dahlström et al., 2009; Drews &
Backdash, 2013; Hontvedt, 2015b). The prevailing idea is that if the simulator
resembles the work setting and the simulation resembles regular work tasks,
skills are more likely to transfer from one context to the other. In the STCW convention, the consequence of this view is that on board practice has been replaced by simulator-based training based on calculations of “sea service equivalency” for full mission simulators (Barsan, 2009). However, the relationship between the degree of fidelity and learning outcomes is not linear.
In some cases, low-fidelity simulations are a cost-effective alternative to high- fidelity simulators and might actually improve aspects of learning:
[…] environmental presence experienced in simulated environments is determined more by the extent to which it acknowledges and reacts to the participant than by the simulation’s physical fidelity. In other words, high levels of technologically driven fidelity can simply be wasteful in terms of costs and time relative to the pedagogical undertaking at hand. (Dahlström et al., 2009, p. 308)
For example, one study on developing maritime English compared an online conference software to training in a full mission bridge simulator (John, Noble
& Björkroth, 2016). The task was designed to simulate a crossing of the Dover Strait, an intense traffic situation in which the students were to collaborate as a bridge team in order to make navigational decisions. A quantitative analysis of the students’ language patterns showed that the students practising maritime English in the low-fidelity simulation used a
“higher lexical richness” than those training on the full mission simulator (John et al., 2016, p. 345). Moreover, a qualitative analysis of the exercises revealed that the low-fidelity simulation increased the students’
communicative competence, especially in terms of collaborative decision- making. The authors concluded that low-fidelity simulations provide students with the means to develop their maritime English in cost-efficient and user- friendly ways (John et al., 2016).
Given the intricate relationship between fidelity and learning, the distinction between low-fidelity and high-fidelity simulators has been criticised for being one-dimensional and overly simplistic and for putting too much emphasis on technology rather than learning objectives, content and design (Beaubien & Baker, 2004). Beaubeien and Baker (2004) propose an alternative typology of simulation fidelity based on three interrelated aspects:
equipment/technical fidelity, environmental fidelity and psychological fidelity.
First, the simulator’s equipment/technical fidelity concerns the degree of
realism of the technical system’s appearance and feel (e.g. the degree to which
the simulator accurately mimics the layout of the ship’s bridge).
Equipment/technical fidelity is considered important for developing technical and motor skills related to professional knowledge (e.g. Dahlström et al., 2009; Hontvedt, 2015a). For example, when maritime pilots train to handle so-called Azipod controllers
2, a high level of fidelity is required to fulfil the learning objective of proficient handling of the technology (Hontvedt, 2015a).
In other words, both the knobs and levers of the simulator must behave in ways similar to those of the Azipod controllers on board real ships, and the controllers must be properly aligned in relation to not only other bridge equipment, such as electronic charts, but also visualisations of the outside marine environment.
Figure 2. A bridge operation simulator equipped with systems for e-navigation.
Copyright KONGSBERG Group, used with permission from KONGSBERG Group.
This first aspect of fidelity, equipment/technical fidelity, connects to the notion of environmental fidelity, a concept that concerns the extent to which the simulator represents visual and motion cues (Beaubien & Baker, 2004). In bridge operation simulators, environmental fidelity involves both the
2 Azipods are 360-degree propellers used on vessels that require flexible steering capabilities (e.g. tugboats and passenger ships).
